It's All Been Done
by Jjah-Jjah
Summary: It all started with a crystal and ended with an owl. After years of living in the real world Sarah finally learns that the way forward is sometimes the way back. [JS]
1. The way forward

It is I, Jjah-Jjah! And I know, I know. I'm not supposed to be working on crap other than what I've already started. But I actually wrote this a long while ago, so ha! No actual working being done. Truth is, I've been feeling rather depressed lately and being as posting things and getting reviews always makes me happy, I thought I'd go ahead and post this to make myself feel better. It should inspire me to write too, being as the whole being sad and whatnot all the time is cutting down on creativity.

I've never posted anything in this category before… Behold me, Labyrinth people! I am Jjah-Jjah! Yo… In any case, I've written other Labyrinth fiction before, and I have to say this is my worst… It's just kind of stereotypical, but luckily I'm aware of it. Hence the title, after all. Anyway. Review and make me feel better.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Labyrinth. Can you believe it? I know it's a shocker…

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It's All Been Done

Chapter One: The way forward…

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"You remind me of the babe…"

"What babe?"

"The babe with the power!"

"What power?"

"The power of voodoo!"

"Who do?"

"You do."

"Do what?"

"Remind me of the babe!"

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Sarah jerked out of sleep so quickly that for a moment she forgot to breathe.

She shook her head and smiled weakly. Always, always, when she slept she heard them singing. The Labyrinth was singing to her. He was singing to her. She never dreamed of the events that happened, or the people she met, her friends, her enemies, or the dangers she faced… No. The only thing that followed her was imageless song.

Perhaps that was all for the better. During her time in the Underground she had never really noticed the music, much less how beautiful it was. More than anything it was this that kept the memory of the Labyrinth from fading from her mind. Always, whatever she did, the songs were stuck in her head. She even hummed them in the shower…

She yawned. She wasn't tired enough to go back to sleep. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was only an hour before when she was going to have to get up anyway. Might as well get up and putter around. She wearily dragged herself out of bed and headed for the kitchen.

The nineteen year old punched the coffee maker into submission and then pulled her body up to sit on the cold countertop, listening as the familiar rhythmic clicking filled the air.

It had been years since she had challenged the Labyrinth. She liked to think that she was at the very least older, if not a bit wiser. Over the dullness laced years she had slowly been forced to change. Some of it was for the best. She no longer saw the world in the featureless extremes of black and white. Now she saw the stark reality of the gray and she wished that seeing gray had been a talent she was born with. It was such a pity that it was something that had to be learned. Really. Now if she had been able to see gray in the Labyrinth then who knows what could have happened?

But then again, would she have even gotten to see the Labyrinth? If she had been able to see the world as something other than good and bad, virtue and evil, would she have lumped Toby into the role of wicked step-sibling and wished him away in the first place?

It made her brain itch. "Killer, you don't think you could climb into my skull and scratch my brain for me, could you?" Killer twitched his little feelers at her and made no other reply.

Killer was Sarah's only companion in a sea of animosity. He was a hermit crab whom she had won in a card game from one of the girls on her hall when she'd still lived in the dorms. Lucky for him, considering that the drunken twit was talking about flushing the poor little dude down the toilet because she didn't want him. Hell, what was the point of getting a pet if you didn't want it? When Sarah had gotten him, he had been horribly timid because of being dropped so much, with no water, moldy sand, and he had been named after an offensive body part.

She had renamed him Killer, because he had scared the holy crap out of all the other girly-girls at the card game. Who knew that hermit crabs were so fear inspiring? She sure as hell hadn't, but then again running the Labyrinth tended to do that to people. Sarah sighed and patted the side of his cage where it sat at the end of the counter. She certainly preferred living alone with him to the dorm, a.k.a screaming meemie central, or at home with her darling stepmother hovering in the distance like the bubonic plague.

She had been going to the local university for roughly about a year now. She was majoring in drama, and minoring in music, inspired by the soundtrack that played through her head nightly. It hadn't taken a whole lot for her to decide that dorm life was not to be in her repertoire. Between hermit crab abuse, screaming drunken Tri-Delts banging on her door at four in the morning, the mildew smell coming from the air conditioner, the larvae invasion, and the cafeteria food, she had come close to total mental breakdown. When the mold entrenched between the bathroom tiles began to resemble that algae with the little eyeballs that had been on the walls of the Labyrinth, she packed up her things and left.

Her stepmother had thrown a hissy fit, going into a big spiel about how if she didn't stay in the dorm while she went to college she'd be ruined for life or some such nonsense. Hell, it wasn't as if she were quitting school! She had realized the woman's ire when she found out that her room was under renovation to house an indoor hot tub. Sheesh… The least the witch could have done was be honest… Things probably would have gone downhill for good, if fickle fate hadn't waltzed into the room in the form of a letter from her estranged starlet mother.

The famous Broadway star had twittered on for several pages before stating that she had just remembered that she had forgotten to acknowledge her only daughter's high school graduation, and being as Sarah's birthday was also coming up, she had sent along a gift. That gift had been a gold-embossed check for a tidy sum.

So tidy, in fact, that she had been able to pay off all her college loans, her tuition for the next few years, (Though admittedly the tuition was not that much; it was a crummy school.), and buy a little house out in country, close enough to get to school on time, and far enough away enough to keep her parents from "dropping by" to use her as a free babysitter.

She knew she loved her mother for a reason.

She had a little bit left over as well, enough to keep the bills paid, and the refrigerator filled while she bolstered her bank account with money she got being a promotional telemarketer for school. 'Yes, we have several restaurants within walking distance, and the neighborhood has a very low crime rate! And the cafeteria food is swell!' Yup. It swelled alright, like road kill on the highway in the summer…

And it was thus that she came to be financially independent, and all was well with world.

Sort of.

The college years were stereotypically supposed to be the best years of her life. But something…was missing… Not quite right… She wasn't quite sure just how to explain it. She should have been happy, at the very least content, but she just wasn't. She felt kind of hollow. There was always a kind of sick feeling in her throat, a rock rolling around in the pit of her stomach. She just felt so melancholy, bored, kind of sad, listless… Generally like crap, though there was nothing physically wrong with her. (A doctor's appointment had confirmed that.) The only time she wasn't unhappy was when she was sleeping. She always looked forward to her song-drenched dreams. They were a bit disturbing, yes, but she tried not to think about it. One shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, after all.

The coffee maker clicked to a halt, and Sarah plopped off the counter, where she proceeded to pour herself a cup of the highly toxic brew, and systematically corrupt it by lacing it with enough milk and sugar to make it extremely syrupy. She downed it in two gulps and made herself another. The coffee smell was delicious as it permeated the kitchen. It was as if it was meant to be savored like a draught. Killer crawled underneath his piece of driftwood and disappeared, signaling the end of his nocturnal rule of the house. Back in the bedroom, the alarm clock sounded off like clarions of the approaching apocalypse.

Time to seize the day…

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"Seize the day, my ass…" Sarah mumbled, banging her head against her car's steering wheel. It had just been one of those days where you would rather shave your head and get ripped in half by a tiger shark with antisocial personality disorder than keep on truckin'. It was such an experience when the people you were paid to call in a happy and chipper voice kept on making guesses about your cup size. She would kill them all with chopsticks… Indeed she would. No one would be safe.

At least class hadn't been so bad, considering. The professors had pretty much given up on all hope of getting anybody to learn, because it was Friday. More importantly, it was the Friday before the first day of spring break.

The entire campus was a mass of whooping, tire-screeching idiots off to Cancun for a week of booze, beaches, roofies, and general stupidity. Maybe the tiger shark would eat them… Nah. If that happened then there would be spaces open for even more nutty weirdoes. Besides, they might make the shark sick. The important thing was that Sarah had one glorious week ahead of her free of flack. She was looking forward to sleeping profusely and generally being a lazy ass.

Yet there was one more duty to perform. The dreaded obligatory parental visit… Being as she, the dullard known as Sarah Williams, was not going anywhere for spring break she had no excuse not to go visit her parents. Yipee.

And so it was thus that she found herself in the driveway of her former household, peering at the door and wondering if she could get away with saying that she had been there, thought that no one was home, and left. All hopes of this kind were shattered when the front door opened and a precocious, gap-toothed bundle of five year old spilled out and began running towards her.

"Sarah's here, Sarah's here!" Toby yelled, in his little angelic voice. Sarah braced herself, plastered on the obligatory smile, and got out of the car.

"Hey, munchkin. What's up?"

She hugged her little brother, and listened attentively to his account of his day at school. She was utterly amazed that the boy lived with the parents he did and was somehow still so cute and sweet. You would think that with Karen as a mother his delicate little psyche would wither and die under the oppression. Maybe he was untouched by his mother's overwhelming aura of popular normalcy because they didn't spend a whole lot of time together. Karen and their father still went out every single weekend. It seemed at times that their time spent on Toby was only secondary to the time they spent doing things for themselves. Sarah often wondered how long it would take for Toby to realize this… Perhaps one day, when they were older, they would be able to band together for strength. Two kindred souls who knew what it meant to be second-best, but not now… Now were Toby's innocent years and she would not see his perceptions of the world shattered just yet.

She half listened to her little brother informing her about the new kite he'd gotten, as she braced herself for what was to come. She picked Toby up, balanced him on her hip, and started towards the still open door of the house. Very soon she would be subjected to a menagerie of tortures including the 'how-are-your-grades' torture, the 'what-the-heck-are-you-wearing' torture, and the most dreaded of all, the 'do-you-have-a-boyfriend-yet' torture. She shivered violently in anticipation. If all went well, she would get to play with Toby for the entire visit. Since Karen was a Nazi and dear old dad was the type to roll over and let his wife scratch his belly, Toby was the only one she could stand.

"Watch me fly my kite?" Toby murmured shyly.

"Hmm? Sure, kiddo. I'd love to."

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Those damn squirrels were at it again.

There was probably nothing in the world more annoying than their constant shrill chattering. She wished for nothing more than a scattergun at that particular moment. Unfortunately her dear stepmother disapproved of firearms; no doubt because of some innate survival instinct that warned her away from keeping weapons near the people whom she showered her charms upon regularly. Sarah stared up at the daunting task set before her with badly masked frustration. Though she had previously persevered through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, she highly doubted that she was qualified to be retrieving lost kites from the top branches of an extremely tall tree which happened to be infested with rabid horny squirrels.

Yup… She had watched Toby fly his kite, (He hadn't wanted any help.) and she had watched it lodge itself in the topmost branches of a tree next to the house. The poor thing had blinked up at his prized possession and burst into inconsolable tears.

This, of course, had resulted in him being herded inside by Karen, and the task of retrieving the kite had fallen to Sarah, who apparently should have used her psychic powers to deflect the kite from the tree because she was the supervising adult.

How the heck was she supposed to climb that! A trip to the garage in search of a ladder was in order…

Once she found a ladder, she hauled it over to the tree, and leaned it against it. It landed against the bark with a clunk, and she shook it a bit to see if it was well grounded. Murmuring a silent prayer to the anti-squirrel gods, she started onwards and upwards.

A few screeching of curses and shaking of branches managed to send the evil rodents into hiding. God, the things she did to insure social tranquility. She ascended the tree slowly and carefully. She sure as heck wasn't going to have a broken neck for spring break. Inch by inch, she came closer to the branch, till finally, she grabbed onto it with shaking hands and pulled herself up. There was the dreaded kite.

It was more towards the end of the branch, hooked on a snag. Gingerly, she reached one arm out and began working it loose. It took quite a while, and a bucketful of patience. Her arms trembled from over exertion and the knowledge of just how high up she was. She let out a sigh of relief as the kite suddenly came free. She picked it up and tossed out of the tree, watching as it fluttered to the ground like and exhausted butterfly. She sat there for a few moments, bolstering her courage to get down, and looked around. Interesting. The window that the branch overlooked used to be the window to her room. There was a pretty good view too. If anyone had been daft enough to climb the tree they could have spied on her pretty well... She shrugged and started down. At least until she shifted her hand and felt something cool.

She looked, and froze. She couldn't believe what it was she was touching. She picked it up from where it had been wedged between the branch and the tree trunk and stared in disbelief. It couldn't be.

"It's a crystal… Nothing more…"

She dropped it and watched it fall to earth.

And she climbed down the tree faster than she had ever climbed down anything in her life. She actually jumped down the last few steps of the ladder, and then ran over to where the crystal had fallen. It was still there. She picked it up once again, clenching it so hard that her knuckles turned white. It was real.

She grabbed the kite in her other hand, ran to the front door, opened it and tossed the thing inside. Without putting away the ladder or saying goodbye to anyone, she rushed to her car and was out the driveway and down the road towards her house in record time.

One of the Goblin King's crystals had been just sitting on the branch overlooking her room.

What in the hell did it mean?

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So yes. Make my day. Read and review, and I'll post the next chapter that has Jareth therein. Although in a slightly feathery state of being…

Tata, JJ


	2. Once you reach the center

It is I, Jjah-Jjah! Well, here I am. Sorry about taking so long to post this. I've had a lot of issues lately and I'm still trying to clear things up. If anyone who's read Moping Melancholy Mad is reading this, sorry. I've had a really hard summer thus far and I haven't really even looked at it. It's just too hopeful and happy story for me to write the way I feel right now. Even this story is a stretch. It's a hard thing to write about Sarah coming out of a blue funk when you're firmly stuck in one yourself. I'm trying, and I'm going to a doctor. Hopefully this crap won't last too much longer…

And now onto the reviews, you beautiful people, you:

Shavaineth: Thank you for being my first reviewer. And yeah, that whole check thing is pretty forced… But she's in a house all by herself now and that's all that matters. Hopefully this chapter will be more to your liking. :)

Midnight Lady: Thank you for reviewing. And I'm glad that you like my writing style.

Anij: Thank you for reviewing. And yes, part of the tone of this story will be the flashbacks… Kinda…

Labyrinth Mistress: Thank you for reviewing. Here's the update.

Morrigana: Thank you. I'm flattered that you really liked the chapter so much. Hopefully this one will be better.

Angle1: Thanks for reviewing. The peeping tom shows up in this chapter.

Hobbit Babe: Well, it's not finished, but here's what comes next.

sheikgohanfreak: Thank you for the compliment. And here you go: the next chapter.

Aisalynn: Thank you for thinking it was funny. You know, the rabid horny squirrel part was originally the beginning of the story. I wrote if first and then added stuff on top of it later.

kokoronagomu: Well, Jareth is in here. Though not quite as tall as he usually is… Thank you. I'm happy that you like my inner dialogue. I am the queen… Yay.

RatherFabulous: I guess it is all bizarre behavior and pretty hair… That must be the answer to all problems… Thank you.

Avalon's mists: Woot is pretty meaningful. Though I myself prefer meh.

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Disclaimer: If I owned Labyrinth, I'd live there. And thus there would be no internet to post this with.

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Chapter Two: Once you reach the center…

"Killer, you're the wise one here… What do I do with it?"

Killer stayed underneath his piece of driftwood, completely ignoring her.

"Next time you have a gargantuan philosophical dilemma you need help with, just so you know, I'm out of town."

No reaction. Ah, well. Life is like that. Sarah sighed heavily and stared once again at the crystal sitting in front of her on the table. There simply was no accounting for this. It was indeed one of Jareth's crystals. This she knew, instinctively, as well as she knew her own name. What she didn't know was why in the world he would leave it just lying around. If he had put it there to spy on her or something, wouldn't he have made it disappear or moved it once she moved out? Watching Karen and her father in the hot tub couldn't be that entertaining…

It was then that she felt a little coil of dread unfurl in her stomach, something she'd only felt once before. With a frown marring her features, she picked up the crystal and headed to her bedroom, and the floor length mirror within. Without expecting anything to happen, but with a touch of desperation in her voice anyway, she called out.

"Hoggle! Sir Ditymus? Ludo? Anyone? Please, I need you!"

And nothing happened. Not too much of a surprise, but she felt her heart deflate in disappointment nevertheless. After the first time, they had never answered. Perhaps it was the crystal she held in her hand that made her think that it would finally work, but it was not to be. She huffed in frustration and threw herself onto the bed. She listened to the bedsprings squeal and curled up in a little ball.

She held the crystal against her breast and let the exhaustion of the day wash over her. In campus, or off campus, college was hell. All she really wanted to do was stay at home for the rest of her life and draw goblins in the garden in her mind's eye. And it was while imagining her garden with a fairy infestation that she drifted off to sleep…

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And there were no songs…

She felt surprised, even though she was dreaming. She had heard them for so long that a dream without them was not a dream at all, but a grim mirror of reality. It took her a few moments to realize she was looking at the Labyrinth, but once she did, she felt her breath catch in horror.

No wonder no one had answered her call.

No matter how different, how scary, how strange, how dangerous the Labyrinth had seemed when she had been there, there had always been a sort of beauty to it; a sprinkling of magic that made the hair stand on end. That beauty was all gone. She could not believe the wasteland she was seeing. There were holes in the walls still standing, everything else lay in dirt covered rubble. The only sound was the wind whistling up a dust storm. In the distance, the castle beyond the goblin city had lost a tower, and the remaining ones were swaying. As she watched, a crack opened up in the ground, and the apathetic rumble of an earthquake knocked a few walls down.

There was not a sign of life anywhere.

The Labyrinth seemed quite dead…

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Sarah flung herself out of bed so violently that she landed on the floor, her head hitting with a sickening clunk.

"Shit, shit, ow…" She cursed, scrambling off the floor, holding her head in pain. Damn. Damn, damn, damn. She hunched over and looked at the clock. She had slept the night and day away… It had been around eight o'clock at night, now it was eleven o'clock in the morning. That proved it right there. College was a hazard to the heath. It was a sinister plot made by the government to reverse the overpopulation problem by killing off all the young people so there would be no more breeding… Ick.

The young woman grimaced in pain and irritableness and headed for the bathroom. She needed to take a shower. At the moment, it took precedence over everything else, including disturbing dreams. She would save examining what she had seen for later.

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An hour later, Sarah padded into the kitchen and began spreading cream cheese over a cinnamon-raisin bagel. She had no idea what to think about that dream… She had been shocked, yes… Shocked, but not completely surprised.

Somehow, she had always known that something wasn't quite right after she left. The first inkling had come from how her friends never came to see her again, no matter what she tried. There was always the possibility that Jareth had stopped them from visiting or something, but that possibility had never stayed in her mind for very long. There was just something… Women's intuition, sixth sense, whatever, there had just been a discordant note in the song of her mind whenever her thoughts turned in that direction.

But all this meant that she was accepting that what she saw in the dream was real. She didn't know if she could handle that… Before she could think deeper on the subject, the phone rang.

Sarah glared at it, but did not move to answer. That was what answering machines were for… Besides, the only people who ever called her were…

"Sarah, this is Karen. I know you're there…"

Joy of joys…

"Now listen, it was very rude of you to just leave like you did yesterday without so much as a goodbye. I'm very disappointed in you."

Oh no! Loss of the approval of the evil stepmother! I'm melting! What a world, what a world!

"And we've decided that we're going to come over and see how things are today."

Shit.

"Now we'll be there around one, one-thirty, so don't go anywhere…" Click.

Before the message had even finished, Sarah had grabbed her purse and was out the door.

She locked up with haste and leapt into the car with the vigor of a hyperactive ferret high on caffeine pills. As far as she was concerned, she had never heard that message. She had gotten up at a reasonable hour and gone out for a drive. Hadn't been at home when Karen called. Yep. Right.

So, where to?

As far from home as she could possibly get; somewhere where her family would never think to look for her. The other side of town! Country roads, woods, wildlife, pollen! Maybe she'd go hiking. Karen would never be caught dead wearing anything other than heels. The woman was like an escapee from the Cleaver family…

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And so it was thus that Sarah found herself strolling through the woods, carrying a paper bag filled with a tuna fish sandwich and a baggie of nacho cheese flavored Doritos that she had picked up at a random store on the way. Her keys were in her pocket, and her purse was in the trunk of her car, that was parked on a gravel patch on the side of the road. Humming the theme from 'Leave it to Beaver', she walked down the faint, twisted, deer-path towards her unknown destination.

Technically, she was trespassing on private property, but the man who owned and had once lived there had died several years ago. Ownership had transferred to some distance relatives who had never bothered to come around for a look. So when people wanted to go hiking, this was where they often went. There was also the house. Sarah herself remembered the ghost stories she had been told about that house when she was a child. It was something of a local legend. Many said that the man who lived there had been pretty much crazy, and speculation about what was inside that house was a popular gossip subject. Sarah stopped. She didn't have anything better to do, might as well go take a look at this haunted house. Anyway, ghosts never came out in daylight, did they?

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About an hour or so later, she finally found the faint stone trail that led to the house. In the meantime, she had eaten her lunch and gone back to her car to toss her trash in and make sure no one had stolen it. It was easier to get her bearings starting from the car anyway. She started following the path, noting that it lead steadily upwards. She walked for what seemed like forever, but she didn't mind. It wasn't too hot, and the forest was a living tribute to spring. Flowers bloomed everywhere, and the tender new leaves were a fresh shade of pale green. Sarah took in a clean breath of fresh air, closing her eyes in bliss.

And when she opened them she stopped.

She had come to a significantly flat portion of ground she could have sworn hadn't been there before. It wasn't a horribly large space; she could see the path continue on the other side, and she could see the outline of the house, just visible through the thick trees a little bit beyond. What really caught her attention though, was the hunched over figure crossing the clearing from left to right, several feet in front of her. He was rather short, and looked old and raggedy, probably a homeless old man. Maybe he was living in the house. Automatically a bit wary, the young woman stepped back a few paces, and turned to leave, at least until he turned and looked at her.

"Good morning." He said. His voice was like weathered wood, and although she couldn't clearly see his face because he had his hood pulled up, she got the impression that he was staring intently at her.

"Good morning." She answered back, even though it technically wasn't morning anymore, but afternoon. Who was she to correct some old guy in the woods?

"Out walking, young lady?"

She nodded, moving forward. He looked harmless enough. "Yes sir. I was just going to look around that old house."

"That house, eh?" He turned his head towards it and nodded to himself. "Why would a nice young girl want to go to a place such as that?"

Sarah took a few steps forward in an attempt to see the old man better. When she got nothing for her efforts she answered him. "Just to look around… To explore, you know?"

"Of course, of course." He nodded again exaggeratedly several times before he peered over at her again. "But of course, you know the stories about that house?"

"Ghost stories." She assented. "Yes."

"Ghosts? Posh! There's more to it than that! There are things in that house! Chandeliers in the broom closets, oubliettes in the basement, circus mirrors in the bathrooms-…"

"Oubliettes?" Sarah interrupted his tirade automatically, against every conditioned manner that told her not to. "There are oubliettes in the basement?" It seemed impossible that such a thing could really exist in the real world.

"Well, actually, there's only one. But it is there, sure enough…"

"An oubliette…" Sarah spoke softly, more to herself than to the old man. The half-shadowed house gained a new meaning in her eyes, unconsciously she stepped a little closer to it.

"Well…" The hunched figure beside her shrugged. "Just so long as you know." He started to walk away, and he was several feet from her when he called back over his shoulder, "Try to be careful, child. Things are not always what they seem in this place!"

That was… Sarah stopped, head snapping from the house to the man in a movement so sudden it made her neck pop. "What did you say?"

Still shuffling steadily away, the man raised a rag covered hand and waved absently. "Good luck? Yes. Good luck, child."

Sarah looked back to the house, reaching a hand back to rub at her sore neck, and then briefly looked back at the old man again. No. She couldn't have heard what she thought she did. She would just go on to the house and look down into the cellars to see if stories had any basis in fact. The faint path unfolded before her, and in was hardly any time at all until she was out of sight.

Meanwhile, the ragged little man kept shuffling onward. All was silent save for the twittering of the birds, but then…

"Iz she gone?"

"What?"

"La senorita! Zat girl zat you were talking to ten seconds ago?"

"Oh, yes! She's gone to the house."

"I know zat. I was zere, remember? Iz she going to find him?"

"I have the utmost confidence in her. After all, oftentimes when it seems like no hope is in sight it turns out-"

"Zere iz…"

"Hey, I was going to finish!"

"I know, I know. I'll say it once, and I'll say it again. Itz so freaking STIMULATING being your hat…"

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The house was old and Gothic; quiet, alone, and covered in ivy almost to the point of ridiculousness. It towered up, all the uncovered windows that peeked up out of the ivy glittering like eyes, beckoning for someone to come in.

But Sarah would not be going into the actual house. No, it turned out that this house was one that had the entrance to the basement on the outside. The doors were wood, cream-colored, strangely not covered by ivy at all. There was a chain and a padlock across the handles, but the padlock was flimsy and so covered in rust that it popped open with hardly any provocation. The young woman slid the clattering chain away from the two orate iron handles, tossing it into the grass somewhere behind her. She bent, clasped the handles with both hands, and gave them a good strong turn.

She could hear a click down in the wood somewhere and the doors pulled outward easily, although not without a piercing squeak. At first it seemed that everything was dark, but as she descended the steps she saw that it was not quite so. There were holes in the ceiling here and there, and smoky streams of life filtered in, dust motes dancing. The floor was hard-packed dirt, making the entire room smell earthen. Gnarled cobwebs hung in strings from the rafters, dust-covered, not really sticky any longer. It looked as if the spiders were all long gone.

Brushing the long strands out of the way, Sarah peered about and sneezed. What the hell was she doing down here with all this dust and her allergies? She had to be crazy. Shaking her head at her own insanity she looked, half expecting to see nothing and half ready to turn on her heel and escape from the dust trap that she had landed herself in.

But then she noticed the odd thing set into the floor.

Slowly she approached, not quite knowing what to believe. It was round; set like a manhole cover with a mechanism in the middle that would twist closed with a rattle, leaving nothing but a few rays of light to one who was trapped within.

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"She chose do-wn!"

"She chose down! Ha-ha!"

"Was that wrong!"

"Too late now."

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There was an echoing clank as she turned the clamp, but it opened easy enough. She yanked the door up and looked down into the pit below. At first there was nothing but black, but eventually the shadows shortened into finite dark gray. A ladder. She needed a ladder. She looked around and suddenly noticed a dust covered ladder hung on pegs lengthwise against the far wall. Funny… She could have sworn that it hadn't been there before.

The ladder was off the wall and down in the pit before Sarah really had any time to process the action. She shook it once, to make sure it was steady and then holding tight onto the rungs, climbed slowly down. The further she went, the stronger the smell. Wet stone, mildew, stale hay. The soles of her shoes scuffed against a stone floor and her eyes adjusted to the lack of light. The edges of her vision were out of focus, fuzzy. But that didn't matter so much as compared to what lay directly in front of her.

Unlike the only other oubliette she had been in, this one didn't open up into a larger space. The walls stayed straight, like a well. It only made it all the easier to see the dirty ragged lump of something in a little heap to the side. At first it seemed to be nothing but a discarded sack, but then she bent a little and looked more closely. Slowly, out of the dark, feathers gained definition.

It was an owl.

…

Shit.

She didn't dare to say his name out loud. It couldn't be him. It just couldn't be. He lungs felt like they had turned inside out. Ironically it didn't look as if he was breathing either. Pushing all fears to the side she crouched down and hesitantly placed her hand on the tawny feathered back. At first there was nothing, but then, a shuddering intake of breath. Faint, hardly a movement at all, but there.

There wasn't any way that she could leave him…it there. In the dark, all alone. Damn. Taking care not to nick herself on the talons, Sarah carefully wrapped her fingers around the bird and brought it up to rest against her chest. The white heart shaped face lolled backwards limply, as if the neck was made of rubber. He looked dead.

Sarah held the owl a little bit closer to her and climbed back up the ladder one handed. She left the ladder right where it was. There were more important things to be doing.

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Just before Sarah got home, she remembered why she had skipped the proverbial town in the first place. If there was any time in her life that she needed Karen not to be Karen, that time was now. The afflicted owl was laid out in the passenger seat. Sarah kept on glancing at him out of the corner of her eye as she drove. What a time to be afraid to set foot near her own home!

When the curve in the road right before her driveway came up she pulled off onto the shoulder and then into the grass, so that her vehicle was shielded by the trees. She put the car in park, got out, and stealthily like a cat, crept up on her house to see whether or not her family was there.

Their car was in the drive. Sarah did her best to conceal herself in a clump of ferns. Luckily it looked as if they were leaving. Karen looked pissed, angrily running her fingers through her hair. She got back in the car, slamming the door, and her husband quickly followed. They drove away and Sarah sprinted out of the undergrowth and back to the car. The owl hadn't moved an inch.

'Now…' She thought to herself. 'Now, what do I do…'

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She closed the door with her foot and locked it with some difficulty. She didn't want to let go of him. She could feel his heart beating, under the sharp breastbone, under the cooler than normal skin. The heart felt as if it were slowing. What to do? What to do!

And then she remembered the crystal.

Yes! The crystal. Surely, if the owl really was the Goblin King, the crystal would revive him. With this thought clamoring at the forefront of her mind, Sarah ran into the bedroom holding the bird close to her. The sheets were twisted and strewn everywhere due to her recent nightmare. She had fallen asleep with the crystal in her hand, hadn't she? She placed her burden carefully in the center of the mattress and rifled through the covers until she finally found the object of her search under a pillow. Purposefully, she placed the crystal right next to the owl, pushing it slightly under him so that it was partially obscured by feathers.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. But then an all too familiar glittering started up and with a sparkle, the crystal was gone. The puff of glitter left over hung in the air for a moment and then settled over the tattered little form, soaking in like oil and disappearing altogether.

Sarah held her breath in anticipation, but found herself disappointed. He didn't move, didn't wake. Didn't change into a tall, blond, punk-rock haired man in tight pants and say, "I have been generous up until now, but I can be cruel." Hesitantly she brushed her fingers up against a wing.

His body was warm. His breaths were deep and even. She leaned in closer and realized that all the missing and broken feathers had somehow replaced themselves. A sigh of relief escaped her lips. He was ok! Thank you Jesus.

The young woman let her head sink to the mattress and allowed her eyes to slowly close. She would rest only for a few minutes. What were a few minutes after all?

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She could see gold behind her eyelids.

Sarah inhaled a breath of air heavy with scent. Very spicy, like cloves, and with an underlying sweetness that was only noticed after the smell properly lingered for awhile. She breathed it in again and smiled, rubbing her cheek sleepily against the bedclothes. She felt so warm; safe and secure. Had she ever really felt this way? Ever? It was a question that she allowed to trickle away; what did it really matter? All she knew was that for once in her life, she didn't feel out of place. She belonged.

Slowly, she allowed her eyes to slit open. Sunlight was filtering in. What looked like the brightly colored shadow of a stained glass window was reflected across white sheets. Her gaze trailed upward till she followed a trail of long, yellow hair up to different-color eyes looking straight into her.

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Her eyes widened in surprise, and then really opened. She blinked. Suddenly she was looking into a completely different set of eyes than she had been a moment earlier. She was back in her room. The sheets, the bed, the windows were all hers. And the owl was awake and looking straight at her out of black, fathomless eyes. She blinked. He blinked. She sat up in the bed and he craned his head to follow her movement.

"Jareth?" She asked, bereft of anything else to say.

The owl struggled and sat up, let out a muffled little screech of annoyance, and looked back up at her. Then she heard the words in her head, very clearly.

Well. Who else would I be?

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